


Be Kind, Rewind

by winterda



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, FIx It, Gen, Maybe - Freeform, Not beta, Precious Peter Parker, Sort Of, Time Travel, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, Young Peter Parker, other characters to be added - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-05-09 12:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14715636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterda/pseuds/winterda
Summary: “Mr. Stark?”Tony looked down at the child in front of him.  The kid had pushed up the Iron Man mask he had been wearing and was staring down at his hands as if he didn't understand what he was seeing.  He then reached up and touched his face before looking up at Tony with confused brown eyes.Very familiar brown eyes.Or: The battle was not going well so Strange makes a decision.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing. Disney owns all.  
> AN: I should be working on my other WIP, but this idea sprang into my mind and now won't shut up. I don't think it's going to be overly long, but we'll see. Also, I have no idea how time travel works in the MCU, so I just kind of made things up as I went. It's probably way off, and Strange might be a bit out of character, but let's just go with it for right now.

They were going to lose. 

There was no changing the outcome. No spell he could conjure or shot that Stark could take or punch that Quill could land that would change this from its inevitable end. They weren't just fighting Thanos. They were fighting Fate itself.

Stephen had seen it. Time and time and time again, they fought. Time and time and time again, they always lost. He had seen over 14 million variations of this battle, and they lose them all. He told them that they had won one, but he wasn't sure if “we lose this reality and start another” really counted as a win. He'd rather it not come to that. 

So how do you win an impossible situation?

This battle was lost. The next that they are not present for will be even shorter. Stephen could already smell the ash in the air from the devastation that was to come even as he pulled on the chain created by his sling ring to help hold Thanos in place. 

Parker and Stark were pulling on the gauntlet. Mantis was holding Thanos in a trance-like state. Drax was helping Stephen hold the mad alien in place. The problem was Quill and what the Blue Woman was going to realize and share. 

Stephen knew what was to come. He'd seen it a thousand times. In some versions, he tried to stop it. In one, he told Quill immediately what happened to his friend before Thanos arrived. Quill let his anger get the best of him, and he and Parker were vaporized almost as soon as the battle began. He tried a hundred different ways, but it always ended with Quill rushing in too soon and getting one or all of them killed before they got anywhere near Thanos. In other versions, Stephen tried to pull Quill out of the equation by hiding him away in a pocket dimension so that he wouldn't get in the way of their victory. All those had ended with all them being killed quickly, and Thanos torturing the information out of Stephen. In one version he held out for nearly month before Thanos thoroughly shattered his mind and took what he wanted. It wasn't...pleasant.

So many time and ways he tried to stop what was to come but nothing ever worked. This battle was lost before it even began, and he could think of no tricks to stop it.

He could let them lose and take the chance that Stark – because of course it had to be Stark – would figure out how to restart their dimension, but he rather liked this version of himself being alive. 

If they just had more players on the field, then maybe they would stand a chance. He couldn't recount the number of times that Stark had wished that his fellow Avengers were with them, and Stephen rather shared the sentiment. They always lost, but himself, Stark, a teenage boy, and a group of Space Rednecks nearly manage to stop Thanos. If Captain America – which was still a ridiculous name – and the other Avengers were fighting by their side, then surely...

An idea started to form. A completely mad and dangerous idea that, if Stephen weren't so desperate, he would berate himself for having. It wasn't much better than Stark's own plan for winning, but if the right elements were controlled – if the right moment was chosen.

Quill was screaming and demanding that Thanos deny the truth that was so painfully obvious. He had seconds now. Once Thanos broke free, there would be nothing he could do. Thankfully, Stephen was always able to think quickly on his feet and keep calm under pressure. He just needed to analyze the obvious and work from there.

They needed allies. To hell with that, they needed the rest of the Avengers. Stark could provide that given the right circumstances. Stephen would do it himself, but Kristen had told him time and again that he wasn't very good with people, and he knew that she was right on that front. They either wouldn't hear him or call him liar, and the amount of time it would take to convince them could be considerably longer than they really had. If put at the right point, Stark wouldn't have that problem. He was one of them, after all. They would listen to him.

The next problem was the right point. It would have to be when Stark was still on friendly terms with the other Avengers. Stephen never cared much for their antics beyond the damage they caused and how it would affect his work, so he couldn't say that he knew the prefect time. He seemed to recall that they had a falling out some time ago, but he couldn't remember the exact time beyond that it was after his accident. It probably wouldn't be a good time to send Stark to anyway since it could put him in unnecessary danger. The same could be said for the other times that Stephen clearly recalled the Avengers in action. 

It didn't help that they would all be negative times for Stark as well, which could be problematic in its own rights. Rewinding time an hour or day or even a week or two was child's play now, but anything beyond that took a great deal of concentration on his part, and acceptance on the part of what was being sent back. He'd read about time travel in the archives, and one of the key things – beside the warning to _not do it_ – for a person to travel back in time and survive with their mind in tact was finding the right moment where something good happened to them. Something that they might actually want to relive. It made the jarring shock of being sent to the past easier for some reason. Again, Stephen was faced with the problem of not knowing, or liking, Stark enough to know any sort of moment for him to return to in the past few years. If he didn't find the right one, the shock could possibly break his mind and this would have all been for naught anyway. 

Stephen was out of time, though. Quill was preparing to start punching Thanos even as Stark was trying to steady him. It would all be over then.

“I almost have it!” Parker yelled as he managed to move the gantlet from Thanos's hand a little.

The boy. That was it. Everyone there knew how Stark treated the kid. Surely their first meeting would be something Stark considered good. Parker would need to go as well because the two of them would have a stronger connection to that moment, but Stephen could do it. He had too.

Quill was punching Thanos, and Mantis was losing her grip even as Stark tried to hold Quill back. Stephen was out of time. 

He let the chain die and broke the spell that hid the stone. The surprise of his action worked in his favor. The others were too stunned by his sudden action to move, and Thanos was not yet in his full capacity to do anything. As the stone activated under his power, Stephen focused on Stark and Parker. 

“Strange?” Stark yelled.

Narrowing his eyes, Stephen said, “Stop this.”

Twisting his wrist, Stephen focused on the moment that Tony Stark met Peter Parker and hoped that they would have enough time to fix this.

\---------------------------------- 

Watching his life go in reverse was probably one of the worst things that Tony ever had to live through, and he had eaten Thor's and Vision's cooking before. The brain, Tony found out, understood what was happening but couldn't really process everything that it was seeing, so everything kind of just came out like a really bad This Is Your Life special that was running in reverse. One moment, he was walking backwards to go stand back beside Pepper in the park, then next he was flying back through New York with Spider-Man swinging in the wrong direction. Cap was pulling his shield out of Tony's chest plate. Rhodey was shooting towards the sky instead of the ground. An army of Ultron drones were crawling away from them. Thor was pulling back the lightning that created Vision instead of crashing it down upon him. Pepper was coming back towards him out of the fire explosion below. His Malibu home was piecing itself back together. The bomb that destroyed the Chitauri ship was coming back into his hands. Coulson was taking back the information back the others. 

It was all too much to comprehend. He knew all of it. He'd lived all of it and had he been allowed the distant feeling that came from those memories it wouldn't have been so bad. It turned out, though, that going back in time made you literally relieve those moments. He felt everything that he felt when they happened, and they were all mixing together into one big mess of bad. Even though Tony didn't think it was possible, he felt like he was gasping for air as the waves of panic rippled through him.

Then, it was over. He felt himself slam into, well, himself at some point in the past. The here and now tumbled together with the there and then, and for a dizzying second, Tony had no idea where he was. His instincts were thankfully unaffected because the moment he felt his feet touch the ground, his hand raised seemingly of its own free will and shot a repulsor blast.

The hulking drone split apart in a spark of poorly made parts, which caused the boy at his feet to jump. All around them people were running and screaming as Tony tried to get his barrings as to when exactly Strange had dropped him.

Fleeing people in a park with vaguely familiar buildings and knockoff dollar store versions of his suit apparently attacking. The Stark Expo the night that Vanko takes over Rhodey's suit and tried to kill him. Again. 

That was...eight years ago. Why in the hell would Strange drop him _here_?

“Mr. Stark?”

Tony looked down at the child in front of him. The kid had pushed up the Iron Man mask he had been wearing and was staring down at his hands as if he didn't understand what he was seeing. He then reached up and touched his face before looking up at Tony with confused brown eyes. 

Very familiar brown eyes.

No. No, no, no, no. 

Strange didn't...

Why would he...?

Tony's face plate slid back as he knelt down so he would be eye level with the little boy. 

“Sir, is everything alright?” JARVIS's painfully familiar voice asked, but Tony could barely hear it as he grabbed the kid by the shoulders. 

“Kid?” he asked.

An eight-year-old Peter Parker blinked back at him. There was a haziness to him that Tony didn't like, like his brain hadn't registered just yet what had happened. 

“Something's wrong,” he said in a tiny, child's voice before crumpling into Tony's arms.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I am just blown away by the support of this. You guys are just amazing. At the same time, that makes me very, very nervous. I hope you guys continue to enjoy this because we do have a good bit more to come. This chapter is still a bit on the short side for me, but hopefully things will start to pick up.

“Something's wrong.”

The world kind of blurred as soon as the words left Peter's lips and everything came at him at once. No, really, like everything. The bright lights, especially the one in the middle of the Iron Man suit in front of him, and the sounds of screaming and machine guns and explosions were mixing up together in this mash of too, too much that was making his already pounding head ache even more. His shirt scratched against his skin and the smell of popcorn and the acrid (what?) bite of explosions were making his stomach turn even as his knees wobbled threateningly. He didn't have worry about falling, though. Some distant part of his brain that wasn't short-circuiting was aware of the fact that Mr. Stark was holding onto him even as Peter clung onto the Iron Man suit with a death grip. 

Almost out of instinct, Peter pressed his ear against the cool iron of the chest plate and tried to focus on the sound beneath it. When he was real little, Uncle Ben had held him close like during bad storms. Even though Peter knew that they couldn't hurt him, they had sounded like the end of the world right outside his window. Uncle Ben would hold him and tell him to listen to his heartbeat instead and the storm would be over before Peter knew it. He didn't hear a heartbeat now, but the soft movement of parts and the gentle hum of the arc reactor did help push down some of the panic that shook through his too small body.

Mr. Stark was talking, but his voice was just kind of lost in everything outside of the smooth metal against his cheek and nearly inaudible creak of well-cared-for parts that Peter was focused on. Everything else Peter's brain was just kind of refusing to process because, wow, did none of it any make sense.

This wasn't Titan. It should be but somehow it wasn't. That was where they were supposed to be, right? He could remember the dull light of the sky and the way the dirt had made his nose itch with its alien smell and the crackly static that crawled up his arm even under his armor every time he passed through one of Dr. Strange's portals. Those were so real that he would swear to them that he knew if he just blinked enough, that was what he'd see. Thanos could do that. He'd seen him do it just a minute ago with the planet; change it all up because he wanted it too look different. It was like the holodeck or magic or something. 

But that couldn't be real. Aunt May had told him stuff like that only worked like that in the movies, but not in real life. No body could do stuff like that – not even Iron Man, and he could do just about anything! – so it couldn't be real.

Right?

Peter didn't know. Not with the way everything was just jumbling together. It was real, but it wasn't. Everything he saw hadn't been real, but it couldn't be because that would mean – that would mean – 

The ground around him exploded in a hail of bullets. Mr. Stark curled tighter around Peter and tucked him even closer to him.

“Damn it!” Mr. Stark snapped at the same time that Peter heard Colonel Rhodes's voice cut through the suit's speakers, “Tony! Move!” 

“Hang on, kid,” Mr. Stark ordered as his faceplate slid back down and he picked Peter up with one arm. Peter barely had a chance to wrap his arms and legs around Mr. Stark before they were barreling through air so fast that it took Peter's breath away and left his eyes stinging. Peter might have screamed, but he wasn't really sure because he was too busy trying not to slid out of Mr. Stark's grip as they arced around the building to try and avoid fire from Colonel Rhodes and the War Machine suit. Except for the being carried part, it was all kind of familiar and reminded Peter of the time that he and Mr. Stark...he and Mr. Stark...What did they do again?

“Hang on, kid. Just hang on,” Mr. Stark was muttering as they started to make their way towards a sky walk from one of the smaller buildings to the main arena. “Rhodey, I'm real sorry about this.”

Even though Peter knew that he couldn't hear Colonel Rhodes over the wind, he could clearly hear his voice in his head say, “Sorry about what?”

They were sliding just under the bridge when Peter felt twist them so that they were no longer going forward but straight up. The bullets were hitting the sky walk as the moved, but Peter barely registered that as he suddenly found himself being flipped upside down in a sharp loop. It felt like something he had done a thousand times even as Mr. Stark turned them so that they were facing ground. Colonel Rhodes was just flying out from under the severely damaged bridge, but the War Machine suit needed more space to make the same kind of flip that they did. It gave Mr. Stark a split second fire a repulsor blast at Colonel Rhodes's back. Peter barely got a glimpse of Colonel Rhodes tumbling to the ground before Mr. Stark had them shooting towards the sky again. It wouldn't keep the War Machine suit down for long, and there were still a whole bunch of drones following them, but it gave Mr. Stark a few seconds he apparently needed.

“Kid, when I tell you to, let go and run,” he said as they twisted over the top of the destroyed roof of the arena. “Find Pepper backstage and stay with her. Make sure she gets out of the park. You can do that for me, right?”

Peter nodded as the main stage rushed up towards him. He clung to Mr. Stark tightly as he thought they were about to crash, but Mr. Stark flipped them so that they stopped right above it. 

“Out of the park, Pete. Both of you,” he said as he let go of him. Peter landed softly onto the stage just as the drones started to appear at the roof. “Go! Now!” Mr. Stark yelled before taking off towards the opened entrance doors.

Peter was running to the side of the stage just as the drones began to open fire once more. His Iron Man helmet had fallen off at some point, so he figured he must not look enough like Mr. Stark anymore for them to bother with him because they flew right out after him. Peter couldn't bother with them, though, because Mr. Stark had given him a mission, and if there was one thing that Peter was always determined to do, it was fulfill any mission that Iron Man gave him. He was an Avenger, after all.

Whatever that was.

\-------------------------- 

Vanko was gone. That wasn't surprising. The moment the alarm was tripped, he probably scurried out whatever rat hole he had made for himself during his time playing with all of Hammer's fun little toys. Nat was sure that he took a toy or two with him on the way out, but she didn't have time to chase him down. Those drones needed to be taken care of first, and then she worry about tracking down the mad scientist who created them. 

Clint was going to be jealous he missed all the fun.

Vanko had left the drones' and Iron Patriot's programming running after he had left, which made it a lot easier for Nat to work her way through it. Computer's weren't what she considered her expertise, but she was good enough to maneuver her way around and through Vanko's codes to get to what she wanted. Rhodes needed to be taken care of first because with the amount of fire power she saw mounted onto his suit, he was by far the biggest threat to Stark. With the drones, it was only a matter of finding their shut down command. It might take a minute, but she was sure that Stark and Rhodes could keep them occupied until then.

Just as she pulled the Iron Patriot's schematics, Happy asked, “What are you doing?”

“I'm rebooting Rhodey's suit,” she said as she tried to break past Vanko's security.

It took several seconds because Vanko actually was rather good at what he did, but it finally granted her access. When she executed the manual reboot, the schematics changed to show that the commands that Vanko had left where being wiped clean as Stark's original programming took back over. Once everything Vanko had installed was gone, the schematics vanished from the screen as Stark's system took back over. Like any system that had multiple devises, it allowed her to pull up the feed from Stark's own suit.

“Reboot complete,” she said as Stark's face appeared in the corner of the screen. “You've got –.”

Nat felt the words die in her mouth when Stark looked directly at the suit's camera. Something was wrong with Stark. 

Nat had been trained since a very young age to recognize the small cues of people's facial features that told her what they were all about. It was ingrained her to always be on the lookout for such things because it always told her how to handle a situation. From the moment she had meet Stark, she had seen the look of a dead man. He knew what was happening to him and was trying to fight it, but there was a look that people got when they knew they were facing death that they couldn't really hide. Not if you knew what you were looking for, and Nat obviously did. Beneath all the bravo and sarcasm and seeming indifference, she had seen that look. It had only sated a bit when Fury had given Stark his father's old things with the promise that the answer was there.

Stark found that answer. She could see his vitals on the screen and everything was as it should be. There should be relief. Instead, in the past day and half, Stark had somehow become jaded and tired and...responsible. 

“You okay, Nat?” Stark asked, which caused her to fault once more. How did Stark know what her friends – _'We're family, Nat, or did you forget all those Sunday dinners and holidays at the farm with the kids already?'_ – called her? Why did her name roll off his tongue so easily like he said a thousand times before when he hadn't said it once? 

She couldn't let on to Stark, though. Not until she had more information. Until then, she would have to play this like she hadn't noticed anything.

“Fine,” Nat said. “Congratulations on the new chest piece, though. I'm reading significantly higher outputs in your vitals, and it all looks promising.”

Stark blinked at her as if it hadn't even occurred to him that the information that she just told him would be welcoming. For a man who, by Coulson's report, was still dying that very morning, that was odd. 

Yes, there was definitely something wrong.

“Oh, um, yeah,” Stark finally said. “Turns out, all it took to cure me of palladium poisoning was Dad's new element. No big deal, really. Made it in my garage. Is Pepper online yet?”

As if on cue, Ms. Potts yelled, “Poisoning! You were being poisoned?”

“Pepper, honey,” Stark said like he was preparing to be screamed at but was trying to steer away from that. 

Good luck, Stark.

“Don't 'honey' me! You were being poisoned?”

“I didn't –.”

“Poisoned!”

Slowly, he said, “I didn't want to worry you.”

“Well, I am, Tony. I am,” she bit. “I – Are you okay? What happened?”

“It's a long story, Pep, and I'm going to tell you, I promise, but I don't have a lot of time and I need to know. Is the kid with you?”

A small line appeared between Nat's brows. Kid?

“Kid?” Ms. Potts echoed just as confused. “Tony, what kid?”

Worry and annoyance flashed over Stark's face but was quickly replaced with a firm frown. “Pepper, I need you to do something for me. There's a kid. I dropped him off in the arena and told him to find you.”

“You did what?” Pepper snapped. “Tony, why would you –?”

“I was a little busy being chased by Hammer drones, and I needed to get him somewhere safe fast,” Stark said. “Pepper, I need you to find him and then get the hell out of there. Hammer's drones are rigged to blow.”

Nat could hear Ms. Potts yelling again, but she ignored her as she brought up the schematics of the drones. She didn't have time to break into them, but she looked over their design. Nothing stood out to her that suggested bombs where part of their makeup, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Vanko could have hidden them so just in case Hammer were to look over anything and wonder what they were. There was, however, a strange quirk to the wiring to their chest pieces. It wouldn't take much imagination to make those into bombs.

“He's right. I'm going to try and disable them here, but it might take awhile,” Nat said as she glanced up at the screen that was tracking the still active drones movements. They were all headed in one direction. Damn it. “It looks like their all heading your way, Stark.”

“Yeah, figured as much,” he said with a sigh. “Pepper, I need you to find the kid. Short, brown hair and eyes, and he's wearing a jacket with a Stark Expo shirt. Grab him and get out.”

“Tony,” Ms. Potts started, but Stark cut her off.

“I've got to go,” he said. “I'll see you when this over. Love you.”

Stark turns off his commutation before Ms. Potts could response, and those two words hang awkwardly in the air. Even as Nat is trying to break past Vanko's code to try and find the self-destruct sequence, she can feel Happy shift uncomfortably beside her, and out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Ms. Potts just staring dumbfounded at the computer screen.

“What?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, sorry about the wait. I meant to have this done last week, but then the chapter just kind of got away from me. The good news is that its pretty long, so...yeah. Enjoy.

_Got to find Ms. Potts got to find Ms. Potts got to find Ms. Potts..._

The thought repeated itself again and again in Peter's mind as he carefully moved down a set of stairs and off the main stage. Every step he went down felt like it was higher and wider than it should be, and Peter had grabbed onto the handrail because he had nearly pitched himself down the stairs when he tried running down them, which made things go even slower. Peter wasn't use to slow. He had to get down them so he could find Ms. Potts and get out of here. Then maybe Mr. Stark could start to fix whatever had happened, and Peter's head would stop hurting and things wouldn't be so bright or loud and painful and would go back to normal.

Whatever normal was.

After what felt like forever, Peter finally made it to the bottom of the stairs and found himself in a shadowy area that wasn't really all that different than the stage area he left. He didn't see anyone, but there were half empty water bottles and pieces of paper and other little items laying all over the floor, which meant people had been there not long before. An exit door that looked like it lead out into a hallway had been left opened, but Peter couldn't see anyone out there either. On either side of him the wall that held up the stage and curved around into the dark but nothing else that he could see.

Peter frowned. Mr. Stark said Ms. Potts was backstage, but he must have forgot how big the place was. Was she in a control room or was there somewhere else super important people were meeting up like the green rooms he was always hearing about on TV? Or did Mr. Stark have like his own special place back here and that's where she was? He didn't know, but he had to find her.

Okay, what did he normally do in situations like this? Well, usually he'd ask Karen for help, but since she wasn't here and Peter wasn't exactly sure who she was, that wasn't going to help. 

So, um, maybe he could just run around the backstage area and find her? She was around here, somewhere. Mr. Stark had said so. Now, he just had to decide where to start: left, right, or through the door.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered to himself. “You can do this. Just pick one.”

But which one? If he went the wrong way, it would take even longer to find her and that meant it would take even longer to get her out and Peter could tell that Mr. Stark wanted her out of there really fast and normally his gut would tell him which way to go but all it was doing right now was back flips and Peter didn't know what to do and – and – 

Peter squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips to try and stop his ever racing thoughts. He had to pick one and hope it was right. 

Pointing his finger in a random direction, Peter began to swing it back and forth and mutter, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe!” 

Peter opened his eyes. Left. He was going left. Okay, he thought as he started to run in that direction, this was a start. Maybe if he was lucky, she would – 

The far wall exploded and caused Peter to almost fall from an abrupt stop before the concussion threw him backwards. Everything slowed down for a moment as concrete chunks and debris flew with him before he landed hard on his back. The wind was knocked from him, but Peter barely had time to think about it before he saw a large piece of rock flying right at him. He rolled fast to the right and just missed being crushed. 

Things kind of went dark there for a minute, but Peter wasn't exactly sure if he had passed out or not. He just remembered laying there while his chest felt like it wanted to beat out of his chest and closing his eyes. When he opened them again his heart had calmed somewhat, and everything looked like it had settle a bit. 

Pushing himself up onto his knees, Peter coughed and spat as the taste and smell of dirt and a explosion filled his mouth and nose. He could barely hear anything outside of the high pitch ringing in his ears, which he would have been grateful for since everything had been so loud except for the fact that it made his head hurt all the worse. His eyes stung from all the dust and smoke, so Peter tried to wipe at them with his palm. That was kind of silly since his hands were surely just as dirty, but he wasn't really sure what else to do. The real problem was the toy repulsor, though. It was cracked and scratched at his face when he tried to rub his eyes. Almost in a fit, he tore them off and toss them to the side before going back to his task.

He really, really missed his mask.

With one last swipe, Peter finally sat up and turned back in the direction he had just been running before the explosion. An entire section of the wall was missing. Had he been just a little faster, he would have been buried somewhere in the rubble. A chill crept up Peter's spin at the thought as he clearly pictured himself trapped beneath the concrete with all its weight pressing down on his back to try and crush him but not quiet managing it. He almost ached from the thought.

No. Wait. That was real pain.

Peter winced at the slight amount of pressure as he placed his hand over the top part of his right arm. It was throbbing, and he could already feel the heat starting to build even from beneath his thin jacket. Pressing his lips, Peter made himself move his arm and fingers. It hurt pretty bad, but Peter didn't think that they were broken. It was probably just going to be really bad bruise for the next couple of days. That was going to be fun.

Sound was slowly sharping for him again, so a sharp, hissing pop from the crater where the wall had been drew Peter's attention. Something was _in_ there. 

Peter tried to push himself up onto his feet but quickly fell back onto his backside as pain shot up his leg. It was sharp and quick but not the continual sting like his arm had. Twisting himself a little, Peter could see where his jeans had torn, and now there were several long scratches from where he must have skid across the floor when he hit the ground. Great. That was just great.

This time when Peter got to his feet, he was a lot more careful. It stung a lot more once he was standing, but Peter tried his best to ignore the pain and instead took a couple of limping steps towards the destruction. Mixed among the rubble were the sparking mechanical parts of a drone. Some of the parts were one fire, but the most of them looked like they, well, had just been blown up. For the most part, the parts were either an unidentifiable, smoldering mess or hunks of sparking metal. There was one large piece that Peter recognized as its leg near where he was standing, while the chest piece sizzled is in the middle of the crater. 

Peter just stood there and stared at the circle in the middle of the chest piece. There was no bright glow to it, so it didn't have any power anymore, but something about it made Peter frown. He...He knew something about it. There was something about the fake arc reactors that was really bad. It was a fuzzy thought and just barely out of Peter's reach, but he knew that there something wrong with them because he had asked Mr. Stark about it once. Mr. Stark had been working on one of his suit's arc reactors, and Peter had been worried because he thought they might...

Peter's eyes widened. 

Blow up. He was scared they might blow up.

Like the Hammer drones did.

“Oh, shit,” Peter said before slapping his hand over his mouth. Aunt May would kill him for saying a bad word like that, but that thought was quickly lost in the shuffle as he remembered what Mr. Stark wanted him to do.

Find Ms. Potts and get out.

Get out because the drones were going to blow up.

The pain in Peter's leg was pretty much forgotten as he turned in the other direction and began to run the best he could. He really, really needed to find Ms. Potts.

\------------------------------------- 

Pepper didn't know what was going on, which was unfortunately becoming rather common feeling in her life. It hadn't always been like this. Hell, a year ago her life had been completely predictable: wake up, find out what kind of mess Tony had made during the time she had left him unsupervised when she got work the night before, fix said mess, send whoever was warming his bed on their way before making Tony go into the office for at least a few hours, make sure he didn't burn the whole place down while he was there, send him off to wherever or to whomever he was supposed to meet that night, and repeat. That was her life. It was stupid and frustrating and maybe not the most fulfilling life, but it had been hers. She didn't have people whispering about how she was only where she was because she was dating Tony Stark and not qualified to do her job. She didn't have to worry about whether or not Tony was going to still be alive in the morning because the magnet in his chest might malfunction and let some shrapnel tear his heart to pieces. She certainly hadn't had to worry about people actively trying to murder either her or him or both of them on what now felt like a regular bases. So, yeah, it might have been boring and silly, but at least she knew what to expect from day to day.

Now...now she didn't know what was going to happen from minute to minute, let alone day to day. Suddenly becoming CEO of Stark Industries, Hammer stealing Tony's designs, this Vanko person's quest for revenge, _palladium poisoning_ – it all felt like too much happening in too little of time. Pepper barely had a moment to catch her breath from one thing before something else was happening. 

And now the Expo was full of Hammer drones that were apparently meant to blow up, and there was a kid missing. 

(Pepper was pointedly ignoring the _other thing_ that Tony had said when he hung up on them because she really couldn't think on that and what it meant with everything else that was happening. When this all calmed down, maybe, but not right now.)

Drawing in a deep breath to steady her, Pepper hurried down the hallway that lead to the main backstage area with two police officers on either side of her. When the police had arrived and arrested Justin, she had told them that they needed find a child that was somewhere in the building before the drones blew up. That had lead to them trying to usher her out and someplace safe, but everything that happened in the Expo was her responsibility now that she was the head of SI. If something happened to that kid, she felt like it was on her, which meant she needed to find him as soon as possible. That way, she could kill Tony slowly from somewhere a safe distant away from all the drone bombs.

What was he thinking? No, scratch that. She knew the answer to that. He wasn't thinking. He was reacting, just like he always did when he was caught up in something. He'd react without thinking out the hows and whys and what ifs, and then just dump it on her to take care of or deal with. The only problem this time was that there was a little boy who was in real danger because of it. 

Tony should have gotten the child to safety or told him to run out of the park when he had a chance, but Tony instead chose to tell him to find her. Why had he done that? It was just stupid. And now she had to try and find him because Tony seemed genuinely surprised that the kid wasn't with her and he wanted her to find him. 

Some small part of her wondered who this kid was. Tony had saved a lot of lives by this point, but this one was different somehow. The way Tony had spoken, it was like he knew this kid. But how? And what did it mean?

Pepper drew in another deep breath and pushed that thought from her mind as well. She could ask Tony about it later along with the _other thing_. 

The backstage door was still propped opened at the end of the hall from when the staff had made a hasty retreat, and Pepper followed the two officers inside. The stage was circular all the way around, so the backstage mostly matched its layout in the design so it looked like a secondary hallway for the most part. The first thing that they all seemed to notice was the large hole that wasn't that far away from them. Twisted metal and huge hunks of concrete were spread all over the place, as small fires from the destroyed drone started to burn themselves out. What caught Pepper's attention more than anything, though, were the broken, child-size repulsors that were lying mixed among the debris.

Oh, god.

“He was here,” one of the officer's said as he picked up one of the toys.

He and the other officer began to dig around in the rubble and call for the child, but Pepper ignored them and began to look around, hoping for a sign that the child managed to escape. Lighting backstage was never the best, and the smoke was certainly not helping, but Pepper had to try. If the kid was trapped under all that rubble, there would be nothing that they could do. But, maybe...

Something caught her eye on the gray concrete floor. It was small and easy to miss, but Pepper had unfortunately become rather familiar with the sight. Tony was never the most careful person when he was working on his projects, and she had found one of these little trails more than once leading up from his workshop. Someone was bleeding, and it looked like it was leading away from where she was standing.

Without a thought, Pepper began to follow the thin trail. It was only a drop here or there, but she kept going and hoped that she would find someone soon. Her heels were clicking loudly in her ears as she moved faster and faster in an almost backtrack of where she had come from. This wouldn't lead to to the control area she had been in before – you had to go out into the hall and come around for that – but it would have lead you back to the main arena.

A series of explosions grumbled from somewhere nearby, like a storm that had gotten too close. 

That...couldn't have been good.

Pepper was nearly there when she heard someone very young yelling, “Ms. Potts! Ms. Potts, where are you?”

Pepper ran the rest of the way and exited out into the arena. A little boy was standing not that far away, turning this way and that in that frightful and frustrated way that children do when they don't know what to do. His jeans were torn and bloody, and he was covered in dust and dirt, but aside from where he was holding his arm, he seemed mostly alright. 

He must have heard her come up behind him because he jumped and turned around. His brown eyes were wide and his face was filthy, but he didn't seem to care about anything about that. He just seemed relieved to have found her.

“Ms. Potts!” he said and began to hobble towards her. 

“Oh my god,” she said as she knelt down to his level to check him over. “Oh my god.”

As she did so, the kid said, “Ms. Potts, I've been looking everywhere for you! Mr. Stark told me your backstage but then I couldn't find you and then wall exploded and I think I might have been knocked out for a little while but then I saw the drone was on fire and I remembered I had to find you but I still didn't know where you were so I started in the other direction because obviously left was the wrong way to go and –.”

Pepper was only half-listening to the word vomit coming out of the kid's mouth, but she was slightly impressed that he seemed to be able to get all of that out in one breath. Still, her main focus on how he was. She didn't see anything that looked like it was broken or any obvious wounds aside from the scratches on his leg, but if dealing with Tony had taught her anything it was that didn't really mean anything.

Grabbing the kid by his shoulder, she asked, “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” the kid said, “but Ms. Potts, we –.”

“I found him!” she yelled back over her shoulders to the cops. “He's here!” 

She then went back to inspecting his leg that was obviously hurting him. The scratches peeked out from between torn denim, but they didn't look as deep as she thought they would have been considering the little trail he left behind. 

“Ms. Potts,” the kid said and tried to get her to stop inspecting him. “We've got to go. The drones –.”

The two police officers came running out from backstage area, and Pepper stood up to address them.

“He's a little banged up, but I think he's okay,” she said.

One of officers came to look over the kid himself, but the little boy began to back up almost as soon as he was on them. He basically tucked himself into Pepper's side before the officer could reach him, and Pepper was surprised by how his strong his grip on her hand became.

“It's okay, son,” the officer said. “I just want to make sure you're okay.”

“I'm fine,” the kid said. He then tugged on Pepper's hand and looked her in the eyes. “Ms. Potts, we have to get out of here.”

“I know. We're going,” she said. “Now.”

The kid's grip on her hand didn't loosen any as they started towards the entrance, with the two officers following close behind. They needed to get out of there. She had no idea how long before Hammer's drones would explode, but the way that her luck had been for the past few months, she expected it wouldn't be long. Really, when had her life turned into a bad superhero comic book? 

They were almost out of the building when her phone began to buzz. 

“Happy? What's going on?”

“Natalie is almost through Vanko's firewalls,” he said, “but you need to get out of there now. Tony and Rhodey are already fighting the guy.”

“We're on our way out now,” she replied. 

“You found the kid?”

She glanced down at the boy, who was watching her with wide brown eyes. He didn't attempt to cover the fact that he was listening to everything she said, which sort of reminded her of someone else she knew. Someone who she was going to kill when this was over.

“Yes,” Pepper said. “He's a little banged up, but seems okay otherwise.”

“Who is he?” Happy asked.

That was a very good question. One she didn't currently have an answer to.

“I don't know,” she admitted, “but –.”

The kid pulled Pepper to a stop. His wide eyes had turned from her and where instead focused on something right ahead of them. Pepper, however, couldn't give him much of her attention because Happy's voice suddenly became very urgent.

“What!”

“Happy?” Pepper asked. “Happy, what is it? What's happening?”

“Can't you do something!” he snapped. “They're still in the park!” 

“Happy? What –?”

“Boss, you've got to get out of there!” Happy yelled at the same time that kid screamed, “Ms. Potts!” 

She looked down at him and then followed his gaze. There were a few broken drones lying on the steps not far from where they stood. They were mainly in pieces, but their chest plates had remained intact and were now flashing red. 

Pepper sucked in a breath and turned towards the little boy. Pulling him in close, she put herself between him and the bombs that were quickly ticking down. In some part of her mind she knew it wouldn't do any good, but she had to try.

Just as she hugged him close, the familiar sound of something heavy landed in front of them. She barely had time to look up and see Tony before he had gathered them both up and had taken off. As she held tightly onto the boy, who was now somewhat pinned between her and Tony, Pepper caught a glimpse of Rhodey grabbing the two cops and shooting out after them just before the bombs went off. She jumped in Tony's grip and held onto him as well as she could while pulling the little boy even closer as the heat rushed up towards them.

It felt like they flew forever before Tony finally touched down on a nearby roof. Tony didn't let go of either of them but did loosen his grip. The kid dropped easily to his feet and took a few steps back, but Pepper stumbled like a baby deer as the shock of what just happened began to settle on her. Tony was trying to steady her as she gasped for the breath, but his suit was sparking. After just watching a bunch of drones blow up before her eyes, Pepper couldn't take that too and gave him a hard push to let her go. He stumbled a bit but quickly caught his footing before pulling off his helmet.

“You're okay,” he said as he reached to steady her. “You're okay.”

“No, I'm – I'm not okay, Tony. I'm not,” Pepper gasped as she held her hands over her face to give herself a second to steady her nerves. “I can't do this. I can't.”

“Pepper.”

“My – my body literally cannot handle the stress,” she continued. “This is too much. You make me CEO of your company –”

“I'm sorry,” he said at the same time. “I wanted my company in the hands of someone I trust.”

Ignoring him, she continued, “– and Rhodey steals your suit –”

“That's really on him and not me.”

“ – and now I find out you were being poisoned, and _you didn't tell me_!” Tony at least had enough sense to shut up then, or at least was wary enough to keep it shut from the glare she leveled at him. “And – and – you tell me you _love_ me out of nowhere over the phone before you go fight a bunch of Hammer robots! In front of Natalie and Happy! Who does that, Tony! Who?”

Pepper's hands were covering her face again as she closed her eyes and tried to think. Too much. This was all just too much. How did all of this happen in just a few days? It felt like a lifetime had passed, and she had somehow missed a few huge steps along the way. 

God, she missed her simple, easy-to-follow life.

“Pepper,” he sighed as he wrapped his hands around her wrists and pulled her hands away from her face. “I'm sorry. Alright? I'm so sorry. You don't deserve all of this. You've had all this dropped on you, and I know I'm, well, me, so that doesn't help but you're you and you're...the most amazing person I've ever meet. Well, maybe second most. You're definitely neck-and-neck there, but I think you've managed to edge him out because you've never called me old or made fun of my taste in music...to my face.”

“Stop.”

“Stop what?” Tony asked innocently.

The ass.

“You know what,” she replied.

“What? Telling you how wonderful and amazing you are?” He frowned like he was actually confused. “You know, most people like compliments.”

“Tony.”

“I'm just saying.”

Pepper swallowed down a grin of her own because she really was still annoyed wit him, but Tony could charm her when he really wanted to. Not always, but it worked more than she liked. She had a feeling that if things kept going the way they were, it probably would stop working so well because even now there was only so much good will he could get from it; however, it had been a long day, and she was too tired to keep arguing with him. 

“I mad at you,” she finally said. “I think I get to be mad at you for a little a moment or two.”

“How about for like 12 percent of a moment?”

He grinned at his own joke, which just caused Pepper to sigh. Why did he always have to be just so...Tony?

“I'm still mad,” Pepper said.

“I wouldn't expect anything less,” he replied.

“This is just a lot for one person to take,” she went on. 

“I know,” he said, “and I wish I could tell you that this is it. That this as crazy as it's going to get, but I can't. I really wish I could, Pep, but...”

The charm that he always used as a shield slipped then as his eyes became distant and a unfocused. Pepper had never seen that look on his face before. It was like he was staring at something beyond the New York street and the burning Expo; something that only he could see and didn't want to. Like he could see into the future itself and didn't like what he saw.

“Hey,” she said and placed her hand against his cheek.

Tony blinked, and the look was almost instantly replaced with a tired grin that didn't reach his eyes. 

“Are you okay?” she asked.

The laugh he let out would have scared her if it were so sad. “Ask me again in about eight years.”

“Tony –.”

“It's fine, Pepper. I promise,” he said. 

That wasn't reassuring.

“Hey, come here,” she said and pulled him into a hug. He didn't fight her or tense up like she expected. For all he liked to flirt, Pepper knew that Tony wasn't overly comfortable with physical affection like this. She had held him a few times, but it always felt a little awkward and uncomfortable after more than a handful of seconds. Not this time, though. He just held tightly onto her, as if he were afraid she might disappear from his very arms.

“Thanks,” he said as he placed his chin on her shoulder. “I know you've had a lot to deal with, but I've been kind of having a shit day myself. I almost died, you know. A couple of times.”

“Tony,” Pepper said as she leaned out of the hug. She didn't let go of him just yet, but she did frown at him.

“What?” he asked with a more genuine grin than before. “Too soon?”

“Yeah. Little bit,” she replied. “And don't talk that way. Not when there's sensitive little ears around.”

“The kid? Really, Pep, who do you think taught me that word? Right, Pete?”

The grin slipped from Tony's lips almost as soon as he turned his head. Pepper gasped and placed her hands over her mouth as he hurried toward the kid, who was now standing on crouched on the balls of his feet on the roof's ledge. He kept putting his hand on the stone wall and lifting back up to only then frown at his palm. Then he reached down to do it again. The fact that he was crouched right on the edge of a ten-story building was lost on the boy, whose only concern was his hands.

Tony slowed down a few steps away from the kid but was sure that he was close enough to grab him. “Hey, kid, get down from there.”

“It's not sticking,” the kid replied. “It's not sticking at all.”

“Peter.”

“Look.”

Pepper swore her heart stopped when the kid stood up and actually jumped up and down. Tony grabbed the kid and pulled him off the edge before he could do it again, but Pepper would swear that five year had just been shaved off her life. The kid didn't fight him and let Tony take him a safe distance from the ledge and put him down.

“I'm not sticking, Mr. Stark,” he boy said. “I – I should be sticking, but I'm not.”

“Kid, calm down.”

“But I'm not sticking,” Peter replied urgently. “I'm not sicking and – and I should be. I know I should be, but I'm not.”

His breaths were coming out faster and faster as he stared down at his palms like they were wrong somehow. 

“Why aren't they sticking? They should stick. That's what I do. I stick to things.”

Pressing his hands together, Peter tried again to make them stay together, but they came apart easily much to his distress. He continued to do it as Tony knelt down in front of him.

“Kid,” he said.

“This isn't right,” Peter quickly said. “None of its right, Mr. Stark. And – and I should have known that wall was going to explode. And that those robots were going were about to go off.”

“Pete, you need to slow down,” Tony said. “Take a breath, okay?”

Peter was already shaking his head. “I should have been helping you! Like on Titan. That's – That's what – I – what's...”

Grabbing hold of the kid's shoulders, Tony gave them a little shake. “Peter!”

The kid stopped breathing. Pepper would swear to it. He just stared at Tony with big, owlish eyes, while Tony held onto his shoulders and stared back at him. Then, Peter blinked and said in a small voice, “I found Ms. Potts.”

Before Tony even had a chance to reply, Peter launched himself at him. The force of the contact pushed Tony back a bit but not enough to lose his balance as Peter wrapped his arms around him and buried his face in his neck. Pepper was moving before she even realized it and was reaching to try and remove Peter from Tony as carefully as possible. She knew how Tony felt about hugs, and this could get awkward for him very fast. Pepper froze, however, when she saw Tony wrap his arms around the kid and held him just as close as he had her.

When Tony had asked her to find “the kid”, Pepper had assumed that it was just some child that he had rescued and hadn't known what to do with in the middle of the fight. Even when Peter was telling her that Mr. Stark had told him to find her, she thought that the kid must have just been a huge fan and that's why he knew who she was because she wasn't exactly someone that most eight-year-olds would know by sight. But things were coming together in her mind now, things that didn't make any sense if Peter was just some random kid: Tony telling her specifically to find him, his joke about how the kid taught him to swear, that he was not only letting Peter hug him but was _hugging_ him back. Tony knew this kid. He cared about this kid. A kid who Pepper had never seen nor heard about before twenty minutes ago. Pepper knew Tony better than just about anyone else; she should have known about Peter before if Tony knew him so well. Right?

“We're going to figure this out, kid,” she heard Tony quietly say. “I promise.”

Pepper pressed her lips and promised the same.

\-------------------------------------- 

Tony was going to punch Strange in his smug, punchable face. He didn't care how on point his beard game was, that asshole had it coming, and Tony didn't think that anyone who had ever meet the guy would disagree with him. Hell, he would probably have to wait in line for his shot, but for all this crap, he'd wait his turn however long it took. Because dropping Tony eight years into the past in the middle of a firefight with his best friend who was being controlled by some psycho physicist bent on revenge and all that cartoon villain crap was bad enough. But dropping Peter in with him.

Yeah, Tony would wait his turn. 

Gladly.

The kid hadn't let go since he grabbed onto him up on the roof, but Tony wasn't exactly inclined to make him. At least while he had him, Tony knew where Peter was and that he was safe. Not that he wasn't now. Vanko was gone, again, and Hammer was off for nice long stay in a federal prison somewhere that Tony had never bothered find. Things should be quiet for awhile. But when had things ever been as they should be when he was involved.

Like right now. If things were as they should be, Peter would be a sixteen-year-old junior superhero with superpowers that let him stick to walls and have fast pace healing powers. Instead he was a scared eight-year-old civilian who was banged up and clearly having trouble processing what happened to him. Hell, Tony was having trouble processing what happened, and he was (debatably) fully functioning adult. He couldn't imagine what was going on in the kid's head because there was no way that a sixteen-year-old's brain being shoved into an eight-year-old's head wasn't going to mess him up in some way. Which brought Tony back to his punch Strange in the face promise. The only question was was he going to use his gauntlet or not.

Pepper was the one that finally got him moving again. Peter needed medical attention, which was a surprise that Tony really didn't want. His first instinct was to ask FRIDAY to run a scan on the kid, but FRIDAY wouldn't be invented for another three years and JARVIS – God, JARVIS was still alive! – didn't have the capability outside of the suit or Tony's home. Which meant that Tony was going to have to take Peter to someone. His next thought was the Compound, but that was out too because, well, didn't exist yet either. So, the gathered EMTs would have to do.

Tony had gathered up Pepper, who looked like she really wanted to talk to him but would wait, in his free arm, and they headed towards the crowd. He had barely landed when heard, “Tony!”

Rhodey came jogging at them from a group of policemen. The two officers he had pulled from the fire were there talking to the others. They looked a little singed but alright otherwise. Thank God Nat had told them that Pepper had taken people with her to find Peter. Last time, Rhodey had thought to come with him to rescue her. Apparently he realized that Tony wouldn't have been able to carry that many people. Yet, anyway.

“You guys okay?” he asked as he looked from Tony to Pepper.

“We're fine,” Pepper said. 

Rhodey's eyes drifted over to Peter. He wanted to ask about the kid who was holding so easily onto Tony but didn't want to do it in front of said kid. Given enough time, it wouldn't stop him, but it was enough to deter him for the moment.

“Are you guys alright?” Pepper asked.

Rhodey said, “Um, yeah. I mean, I think Starsky and Hutch might have gotten a little toasted, but they seem okay. Glad to tell everyone about how they were saved by the Iron Patriot.”

The snorting laugh was out of Tony's mouth before he could stop it. He tried to turn it into a cough, but Rhodey was already frowning at him.

“What?” he asked.

Tony shook his head. “Nothing.”

“What, man? Come on.”

“I didn't say anything.”

“But you want to,” Rhodey said. “Come on. What is it?”

“Just...”

Tony pressed his lips as if he were actually debating about what he was about to say. Not that that was true. He and Rhodey had had this discussion before, and it didn't stop Tony back then – in the future, whatever – so he definitely wasn't going to hold back down.

“The Iron Patriot?” Tony asked. “Really?”

“What's wrong with it?” Rhodey asked.

“Besides the fact that it sounds like your trying to be some kind of red, white, and blue version of me?” Tony asked. “Come on, Rhodey.”

“Like I'm trying to be like you?” Rhodey replied. 

“Well, I did build the suit. And program it. And I am _Iron Man_. I'm just saying.”

Rhodey was frowning at him but was nodding all the same. Tony knew that he hadn't had the choice of what he was going to call himself. Uncle Sam might not like Tony, but they appreciated the fact that he was the superhero right now. It was good press for them right now to have a suit and some kind of association with him. That wouldn't last, but it didn't make the fact that made Rhodey call himself Iron Patriot for the next few years any less funny.

“Just saying. Right,” Rhodey said. “And I suppose that you could come up with something better.”

“As a matter of fact, Colonel Rhodes, I certainly could.”

“Yeah, like what?”

“Like War Machine,” Peter said. When Rhodey's attention snapped to him, Peter shrank down a bit but didn't try to hide away like some kid this age would. He just tightened his hold around Tony's neck a bit and said, “I like War Machine better.”

“War Machine,” Rhodey repeated. “I like that. That sound's much more badaaa-der. That sound much badder.”

“Nice save,” Tony said.

“Shut up, Tony,” Rhodey said before smiling gently towards Peter. “And who are you exactly?”

“Peter!” 

A familiar voice rang out across the parking lot and caused Tony to turn towards it. Because that voice, he didn't ignore that voice. Not after their little meeting after Peter's spidersize secret scurried out of it hiding web and across her path. Tony had faced some frightening things in his life, but she was pretty high on his do not cross list, right under Pepper.

A younger May Parker was crossing the police barricade, trying to make her way towards them. A few police officers went after her to hold her back, but she didn't even seem to see them until they where physically restraining her. By the look she was giving them, Tony was putting his money on her winning.

The tiny push that Peter gave him surprised Tony and was enough to make him let him go. If the kid's leg was bothering him, he didn't show it as he took off towards her. No. Wait. Not her. 

“Uncle Ben!” 

A man that Tony had never seen outside of pictures and a few short videos crouched down next to May. Peter plowed into him hard enough to knock him to the ground and clung onto him as tight as an eight-year-old could. Tony could tell by the way his tiny shoulders were shaking that Peter was crying. Ben whispered something to the kid as he held onto him, and Ben ran his hand over Peter's head. Peter just held onto his once dead uncle, and Tony could only watch from a distance.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait on this. This chapter just kind of took longer than I expected. Again, sorry.

_The universe was burning. Ash and death filled the air and coated every part of his skin. He choked on it as filled his mouth and nose and sent him crashing to his knees in the dirt. He coughed and spat, but it wasn't enough. It still scratched his throat and scorched his tongue, and he couldn't stop it._

_He couldn't stop any of it._

_Tony breaths were harsh and his heart pounded rapidly in his chest as he forced himself to lift his sight from the red dirt beneath his filthy fingers. Bruce's blank eyes were the first thing he saw. He laid there unchanged, with his mouth opened slightly in surprise, as one hand loosely held onto to the large spear protruding from his chest._

_Nat was face down in the dirt near him. Her injuries weren't obvious, but her eyes were just as empty. As were Clint's with his broken bow and snapped arrows, and Wanda's with her twisted fingers and stained clothes, and Sam's with his cracked goggles and broken wings. Thor was propped against the rocks, his face and hair bloody and his body broken in a way that Tony never imagined could happen to a god. Barnes's face was hidden behind a mess of greasy hair, but Tony could feel the weight of his empty stare just as much as the others._

_Tony wanted to scream, but he couldn't get his throat to work. All that would come was silence._

_Even as his legs threatened to give out from under him, he forced himself to his feet and tried to moved towards them. His left arm burned like hell, and his right leg wasn't going to take any weight, but he had to get to them. He had to help. Most of them might not want his help, not after what he had done, but he had to –_

_“Tony.”_

_He turned to so fast that he nearly fell back to onto the cracked pavement of the New York City street. Car alarms, screaming low-flying ships, and desperate cries of faceless, terrified people echoed around him as bits of fire and embers fell from above. Familiar buildings were broken and collapsing as Chitauri raced by and overhead, filling the space all around him but never coming any closer._

_Cap frowned at him. His hands were resting on his belt and his feet were planted in that way that always reminded Tony of a sheriff from an old Western, but he wasn't making any move to stop what was going on. He just continued to give Tony that look he was always so fond of giving him that was too close to the one Howard had worn every time Tony was in his presences._

_“Where were you, Tony?” Cap asked. “We needed you.”_

_“Cap, I –”_

_“You left us here,” Cap said as if Tony hadn't said anything. “We needed you, and you left us to fight on our own. We didn't know what was coming. You should have come back and warned us.”_

_A sad look settled on Cap's face as he glanced at the carnage around them._

_“I told you if you needed me, you just had to call,” he said. “Where were you, Tony?”_

_“I'm sorry,” Tony said._

_“You're sorry,” Cap repeated as he slowly shook his head. “We're all dead, and you're sorry.”_

_The overcast shadows around them grew and stretched and swallowed the blurring battle as Cap's frown grew harder and harsher. Even though he couldn't really feel it, he could see the air growing colder as the embers mixed with the snow before completely overtaking it. Beams of light reflected off the gray walls and deepened the shadows cast on Cap's face._

_“I knew from the moment I saw you that you were no hero,” Cap said as he stepped towards Tony. “You know it too. That's why you deserve this.”_

_Lightening fast, Cap reached for the shield strapped to his back and brought it down at Tony's chest. Tony threw his hands up as he stumbled back, which sent him sprawling onto his back._

_Red dirt flew up around him upon impact as the air rushed from Tony's lungs, and he found himself staring up at angry sailor's sunset that stretched over the entire sky. A dark figure was cutting across it like a bird in a hurry to catch its prey. Even from this distance, Tony recognized Rhodey's suit, which caused a knot to form in his stomach. He knew what was about to happen. It was a different sky on a different planet, but Tony knew with certainty what was about to occur. He also knew he would be far too late to do anything about._

_Tony thought he screamed when the beam of light shot Rhodey from behind, but he was just as sure that he heard no sound. His body would move. He was stuck in place and helpless to do anything but watch as his best friend fell from the sky. Only this time, Rhodey wouldn't get up. The suit wouldn't be good enough to take the fall, and Rhodey would be crushed from within. All because Tony hadn't bothered to update the suit. All because Rhodey had decided to stand by him. All because Tony hadn't been good enough to save him._

_It didn't seem like he could save anybody._

_“No,” a deep crawling voice said. “You really can't.”_

_Thanos grinned at him as he dropped Vision's body to the ground. The Mind Stone was pinched between his fingers, and the bastard actually took a moment to admire it before dropping it into the last empty slot of his gauntlet. The yellow stone flashed brightly among the other five stone before settling and emitting the same light ethereal that the others had. Cold dread spread through Tony as Thanos smiled at his prize._

_No, no, no, nonononono_

_Then those eyes rose and pinned Tony in place._

_“You knew this would happen,” Thanos said. “The moment I stepped onto my homeworld, you knew that this was the inevitable end. These stones, resting in this glove, bending to my will. Because you recognized me. You knew who I was. I would never stop – will never stop – until I got exactly what I wanted.”_

_Tony wanted to move, tried to force himself to do so, but found that he was trapped in place. Thanos knelt down before him like Howard always had when Tony was a child and his father wanted to be sure that Tony understood how important something he was about to tell him was._

_“You knew because you and I are exactly the same.”_

_Raising the gauntlet, Thanos held his fingers together. There was nothing threatening in the pose, but something about it made the hair on the back of Tony's neck stand on end._

_“Tony.”_

_“Mr. Stark.”_

_His body listened to him this time, and Tony twisted in the dirt to see behind him._

_Pepper and Peter stiffly stood a few feet apart from each other; their bodies taunt like they were now the ones frozen in place instead of him. Pepper face was set and firm, even as her breaths were coming out quick and shaky. Peter looked as if didn't know what was going on, but he was still determined to be brave because Mr. Stark was there and he would know what to do: he would save them._

_No. This was not happening. This was_ not _happening._

_“But it is, Stark,” Thanos said calmly. “This is how it will happen. Because you can try and fight destiny, but you're never going to win.”_

_The blood was rushing in Tony's ears, but he could still hear every word that the Titan had said as calmly and patiently as a teacher does when explaining a hard mathematical concept to an inexperienced and uncertain child._

_The snap echoed, like it was ricocheting down a long corridor as a sonic wave would. It shouldn't have been a frightful sound. It shouldn't had made his head pound and his stomach roll. It shouldn't have made him want to scream. Tony knew, though. This was what Quill had warned them of; what Thanos could do if he had all the stones at his control. A snap of the fingers, and the world would be gone._

_As Pepper and Peter's bodies grew bright from Extremis burning through bodies as it built to its zenith, Tony knew that it was._

*

With a pounding heart and a sharp intake of air through his nose, Tony's eyes snapped opened. The need to move, to do something, forced him up into a sitting position, even as the bile burned the back of his throat. Squeezing his eyes shut, he leaned forward with his head in his hands as he focused on breathing through his nose and listening to the soft sounds of an air conditioner; the slightly musty smell of sweat against an otherwise clean room; how clammy his skin felt even though the air around him was only a little cool. 

Breath.

It was just a dream.

Breath.

Just a dream.

Breath. 

A dream and nothing more.

A lie.

Tony opened his eyes. The dulled sunlight that peeped in around the drawn curtain's edges barely illuminated the room as his mind tried to remember exactly where he was. A hotel room, obviously, which gave him a sort of sense of comfort in its familiarity, but not as much as it waking in his own bed with Pepper next to him would have. Only, she wouldn't have been there, would she? Not now, though his panicked mind was having trouble coming up with a reason why he knew that was true. Maybe it was better that he was here because it kept the real fear at bay when he reached for her and found only expensive, empty sheets instead. She wasn't always with him when he traveled, which kept him balanced enough so that he could remember why he was alone in the Presidential Suite of the Four Seasons. 

Oh.

Right. 

So, Thanos and Strange and the major rewind that just happened to him and the kid apparently really did happen and wasn't part of the nightmare he just woke from. Huzzah. 

Groaning, Tony placed his hand over his face in what he supposed was an attempt to wipe away the last of the nightmare and accompanying headache this whole Back the Future scenario had caused. The images were still lingering there but their edges were already starting to fade. Not fast enough to make him forget them just yet, but at least enough to keep the breakfast he had managed to eat before bed from making a reappearance. That was never fun. 

“FRIDAY, what time is it?” he asked as he laid back and placed his arm over his eyes. He pushed the last of the nightmare away and focused solely on the welcoming dark that helped the awful ache from what felt like the very center of his skull. God, it hadn't hurt this much when he decided he needed to crash after the extremely long night of dealing with cleanup for the Expo, answering questions about what happened, and dodging Rhodey's and Pepper's questions about a certain spider kid, whose aunt and now-living uncle had carted him away at some point when Tony wasn't looking. 

The kid. That was a headache all on his own. Tony knew Peter was safe and that May and Peter's uncle wouldn't let anything happen to him, but Tony couldn't help but worry. After the day he had yesterday, the kid was in distress and confused by everything – hell, Tony was in distress and confused by everything – and an upset spider-baby could lead to trouble. May and Mr. May wouldn't know what was going on, so Tony wasn't sure how much help they'd be. 

Sure, the kid didn't have his powers: Peter had done a spectacular job in pointing that out with his little show on the roof that nearly gave Tony a stroke and heart attack at the same time. That didn't mean that the kid couldn't find trouble, though. Hell, he caught that Vulture guy because the man turned out to be Peter's date's dad. Spider-Man had nothing to do with that. 

Really, Tony had files dedicated to tracking Peter's antics, and there was a troubling trend in there when it came to Peter and trouble. FRIDAY had even made a chart. As a joke, but it kind of stops being funny when you can actually see a pattern.

The kid need help, and he was still sort of Tony's responsibility. Maybe not as much as before. The kid had his uncle now, so there were things that wouldn't be Tony's place to deal with any more, which was probably a good thing. At least he didn't have to worry with how much he was screwing the kid up because Uncle Perfect was there again to fix whatever Tony had broken. That was good because Peter didn't deserve to be messed up because Tony and all his bullshit. 

A part of Tony recognized how much better the kid would be if Tony just left him and his family alone, but he couldn't do that just yet. Peter was stuck in the middle of this whole mess with Tony, and it was Tony's responsibility to get them out. Or at least make it bearable until he figured out what to do. He'd leave Pete be then and let him have the life he should have with his family. His whole family.

“FRIDAY?” he asked again as he reached for his phone.

Then Tony remembered. FRIDAY wasn't there. She was a sparsely written program that was no where near complete that he had sitting in a file somewhere in his workshop. She was still more of an idea that a program, but her bare bones were there. He wouldn't finish them up for some time, though, because he had JARVIS. His first born. His friend. His AI who he currently couldn't directly interface with outside of the mansion or one of the suits. Tony was fixing that – both of those things – the first chance he got. Right now, though, he had some other things to worry about.

Picking up his phone, Tony saw that it was a little after four in the afternoon, which meant he had been asleep for nearly five hours. He must have been tired because that was a personal best for the past ten days. Of course, that also meant that he had nearly a hundred emails and voice mails from various people wanting various things. A quick check told him that none of them were from Pepper or Rhodey or Happy – there were a few from Fury that Tony was glad to ignore for the moment, and one or two from Coulson that Tony didn't know if he was ready to respond to yet – so he disregarded them all for the time being and instead read back over the information he had been searching before exhaustion had caused his vision to blur the words beyond recognition. 

For someone that Tony had never heard of before yesterday, there was a lot of information out there about Dr. Stephen Strange. Turns out, the guy wasn't a liar and really was a doctor. A neurosurgeon and a brilliant one at that. It had taken Tony nearly a full minute just to scroll through the list of award this guy had won in his field, and that wasn't mentioning all the articles and papers that Strange had submitted himself. The brain wasn't really Tony's area of expertise, but from what little Tony had read from some of Strange's articles, the guy was good. He might have even been someone that Tony might have once considered calling in if he had ever needed a neurosurgeon for anything, given his credentials. It all definitely went a long way in explaining why the guy was such an ass. It didn't explain, however, how one of the top doctors in that field suddenly dropped out of it and decided to spend the rest of his life doing Harry Potter cosplay. 

As much as Tony hated it, he needed to talk to Strange. He needed to know exactly what he had done to him and Peter. Yeah, Tony got the whole sending them back in time, but he didn't know what that meant exactly outside of 'stop Thanos' (which Tony really didn't even know where to start with that one). He had eight years to plan for that one, so he figured he had some time. Bits and pieces from the dream flickered from the thought and caused Tony to shutter, but he ignored them for now. He had time. He had to have time. Maybe not a lot. Maybe not even enough, but it wasn't something that he could fix today. There were things to do first.

Such as finding out what this time travel nonsense was going to do to him and the kid. Was there some kind of time limit? Were they going to start to forget things? What about the kid's powers? Were they _gone_ gone, or just kind of gone? Also, how does the whole time stream work? If they change one thing – which, he guessed he kind of already did because the kid didn't play a big role the last time this happen – did that mean everything else changed too? Did that create a paradox? Where they going to vanish because of it? Tony had questions for Strange, and he didn't like not having answers. 

Plus, there was that whole 'punch Strange in the face' thing he had been promising himself.

Tony had gone so far that morning to try and find the wizard that he retraced his steps back to Strange's place. Or tried too, anyway. Tony couldn't seem to find the right place, but he knew that it had been on that street. Nothing stood out to him, though, and Pepper and Happy were already not so subtly expressing their concern about his lack of escaping back to Malibu the first chance he got, so he couldn't stay longer to investigate. He would try again later. If that failed, he could always just make an appoint at Strange's office. Yeah, it lacked the element of surprise, but at least Tony wouldn't have to tack him down all of the city.

Having decided on a course of action, Tony dragged himself out of bed and headed to the en suite where a bottle of aspirin was waiting for him. He had only meant to take a quick glance in the mirror when he reached the sink, but Tony that he couldn't quiet look away once he caught sight of himself. Even though he wasn't that much younger than before, he sure looked it to him. His hair was darker than it had been in a long time, and the bags under his eyes that he was so use to seeing practically weren't there. There was weight to his eyes, but not like they had been. Not like...yesterday.

His gaze drifted down to the center of his chest almost involuntarily as he absently touched it. The bright blue circle in the center shone through the dark fabric of his T-shirt as a constant reminder of what was there, but the dull pain around it reminded him why. This thing purpose was far more vital to him that storing his suit. Part of Tony wanted it gone. It had been so long since he needed it that it felt wrong for it still be there. Another part of him, though, was relieved. 

Tony forced himself to look for a glass as he cleared his throat. With all the other stuff going on, he really didn't want to go down that rabbit hole. Not with the way that his head was killing him and certainly not this sober.

After filling the glass, Tony grabbed the bottle and poured four pills into his hand. He popped them into his mouth and was washing them down with the water when he glanced back into the mirror. His eyes widened when he noticed a figure in a yellow hood standing directly behind him.

Tony had already spun around to face the intruder before the glass shattered at his feet. An empty tub and a gauntletless hand stretched out in front of him were the only things his saw, though. 

Well, that was...weird.


End file.
